PESHAWAR: Setting aside the death sentence, the Peshawar High Court has acquitted a man on the charge of killing senior lawyer Razaullah Khan.

A bench consisting of Justice Sahibzada Asadullah and Justice Farah Jamshed accepted an appeal of the accused, Jabir Khan, declaring that the prosecution couldn’t prove its case against the appellant.

An additional sessions judge had convicted the appellant on June 29, 2024, and handed down the death sentence and a fine of 500,000.

Appellant Jabir Khan, who is the nephew of the deceased, had allegedly entered the lawyer’s office on Nov 16, 2022, and fired at him, leaving him critically injured.

Declares prosecution failed to prove charge against appellant

Razaullah, an elected member of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council, was shifted to the hospital but died a few days later. In the dying declaration, he named Jabir as the attacker.

The FIR of the incident was registered at the Peshawar’s East Cantonment Police Station, with the motive of the murder reported to be a land dispute.

Senior lawyer Shabbir Hussain Gigyani appeared for the appellant and argued that the dying declaration of Razaullah was doubtful as according to prosecution, he had received eight bullet wounds and was critically injured.

He argued that Jabir couldn’t be convicted merely on the basis of dying declaration when other evidence was not available.

The lawyer contended that the office of Razaullah was situated in Peshawar’s sensitive Saddar area but CCTV footage of the incident wasn’t acquired by the police to support its case.

He argued that a video went viral on social media after the incident, showing an attacker enter the office.

Mr Gigyani, however, said the police didn’t conduct a forensic examination of that video to prove that the person seen in it was actually the appellant.

He argued that the trial court had ignored several important aspects of the case and erred in convicting the appellant.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2025